A Marriage Law Defeated
by krachum
Summary: For everyone who ever thought the marriage law plot was an incredibly dumb excuse for a lack of imagination. How the houses of Hogwarts united thanks to minister Fudge's stupidity.


**A Marriage Law Defeated**

By some miraculous and undisclosed method, Voldemort had been defeated. Everyone was back in their proper roles as students and teachers. Thus far, it had been an unusually uneventful year.

Harry, Ron and Hermione sat at the Gryffindor house table. All around them were scores of students and teachers that could, given a sufficiently unprincipled fanfiction writer, form the most ludicrous matches and romantic pairings imaginable.

"How did you defeat you-know-who again Harry?" asked Ron. Bizarrely, the precise means used for the accomplishment of this feat seemed to have slipped his mind.

"Oh, you know," replied Harry. "The writer couldn't be bothered to come up with a feasible proposal so they dropped a one-liner that _against all odds Voldemort had been defeated_."

"Wouldn't that be self-defeating as Voldemort is the driver of the main plot in most of our adventure?"

"Ah, well. Yes," Harry seemed embarrassed. "But he was causing too much interesting and intriguing trouble to allow the writer to properly focus on romantic soul searching."

"Oh," said Ron not understanding at all.

Harry paused from shoveling treacle tart into his mouth, knowing that Ron had not yet finished.

"Err.. um.." Ron hesitated. "Why would anyone want to focus on romantic soul-searching? I mean it's not bad as a side-plot but as a main focus?"

"Isn't it obvious Ron!" exclaimed Hermione. "These are hormone driven teenagers that have no other outlet for their fantasies. They are simply too focused on getting their characters laid to bother developing a plot."

Ron chewed his mashed potatoes meditatively, he was about to ask another question when the doors of the Great Hall slammed open.

The minister of magic himself, Fudge, stood outlined in the doorway. He wore an unmistakably smug expression on his face as he stared at Dumbledore. Obviously Fudge, as the leader of an entire hidden society, had nothing better to do than interfere with the running of a school.

Fudge walked into the hall, accompanied by many, many fanfiction authors (Err. Pardon the typo. Aurors, Aurors!). They marched in locked military step. Their resplendent and impractical crimson robes were obviously meant for just this kind of petty show of force rather than true battle situations.

A hush swept over the hall. Everyone was properly frightened of what might happen next.

"I!" the short pompous man decreed, pointing his fist into the air. He maintained this pose for many seconds.

"Cornelius," asked Dumbledore in a slightly irritated tone, having to postpone his desert in order to deal with this unexpected situation. He looked at his lemon pie rather wistfully. "Weren't you deposed from the ministry a year ago?"

"I was," acknowledged Fudge. "But because of my brilliant characterization as the epitome of the useless, inept and corrupt politician, I was brought back to implement the most ridiculous law proposal ever invented by the machinations of a fan's mind."

He turned back to the crowd.

"I, Cornelius Fudge, am celebrating my breathtaking political reversal and landslide victory by imposing a marriage law!"

Immediately the entire student body began to run around like headless chickens, screaming in horror. The teachers all looked very grave.

"Please tell us more," asked Dumbledore with more respect than he had ever before shown this weak scheming politician.

Fudge drew himself up importantly. "Because of the wizarding world's declining birthrate and the growing incidence of squibs among pureblood families, every witch and wizard of legal age shall be paired up and forcibly married so that they may bear children. Suitable pairings will be assigned by the ministry according to _sientifacly_ proven principles so that pairings will maximize the compatibility of breeders so that they may produce numerous and healthy children."

Harry uttered something between a gasp and a scoff of disbelief. It echoed around the stone walls of the hall, all heads turned towards him.

Cornelius Fudge's beady little eyes peered down at him. "I am quite serious mister Potter, anyone found trying to resist will have their wand snapped and should anyone try to leave the country, their families will be arrested."

"We have no choice but to obey," docilely said Professor Percival Wulferic Dumbledore. Incidentally his credentials happened to include being headmaster of the only school in Wizarding Britain, recipient of the order of Merlin first class, leader of the vigilante group dubbed Order of the Phoenix, feared enemy of Voldemort, defeater of Grindewald, political mastermind and head of the Wizardmoth. As his record demonstrates, it was perfectly natural for him to submit to the violation of the freedom of his students without the smallest objection.

Fudge barred his little teeth and rubbed his hands in glee. "Random Auror #74, read out the pairings," he ordered in a malevolent voice.

An Auror with a blank and expressionless face jumped up on the teacher's table holding a scroll. He walked over to the middle of the table where he promptly kicked over a plate of lemon pie. Dumbledore whimpered pitifully as he watched it crash to the ground.

The nondescript Auror then read in an even voice: "Pansy Parkinson shall marry Ron Weasley despite the fact they're both pureblood. Hagrid shall marry Susan Bones despite the fact they're fifty years apart in age. Hermione Granger shall marry Draco Malfoy, despite the fact they'll likely mutually kill each other before the year is up. Lavender Brown shall marry Gregory Goyle despite the fact he's obviously gay. Millicent Bulstrode shall marry Seamus Finnegan despite the fact she's only a two on the hotness scale while he's a nine. Harry Potter shall marry Severus Snape despite the fact Snape is the age of Harry's father and the fact they are both men which seriously hampers the whole child producing aspect of this law..."

"What!" squeaked Harry. "That doesn't even make any sense."

"I refuse to marry that sniveling brat!" exclaimed Snape.

"And I refuse to marry Snape!" spat Harry.

"_Professor_ Snape, Harry," remonstrated Dumbledore, all the while sadly looking at the upturned pie.

"Shut up!" everyone yelled at him.

"You have no choice in the matter," stated a self-congratulating Fudge.

"Oh," said the students before they sat quietly and waited for the Auror to finish the rest of the announcements.

As the Auror droned on, Harry looked around himself in disbelief. The entire student body was acting like it had been lobotomized. He sighed in frustration.

OooooooooooooooooooooO

Later that night, in the common room, Harry finally decided he had had quite enough. Everyone, with the exception of himself, Ron and Hermione, was acting like a herd of sheep.

Harry slowly leaned over to Hermione, keeping a wary eye on the herd. He had read somewhere that you shouldn't make any sudden movements when confronted with a wild animal.

He spoke in what he hopped was a calm and soothing voice. "Do you think they're cursed?"

"Nooo," answered Hermione looking at him strangely.

"Are they poisoned? Was it something in the pumpkin juice?"

"Of course not," replied Hermione impatiently.

"A case of mass hysteria affecting the reasoning centres of peoples brains then?" pleaded Harry quietly.

"Is that why you're speaking in that weird voice?" loudly interrupted Ron.

"Shhh!" stuttered Harry, fearfully gazing at the nearest students. "They might attack. What it they have the magical equivalent of rabies?"

Ron laughed his ass off. He then proceeded to dispel Harry's illusions during a rather one-sided conversation.

"_Course they're not cursed Harry!... I'm not affected because, I'm not one for tradition, y'a know?... No __that's not it. Being a blood traitor is more than just opposing Voldemort, it's opposing a lot of the old ways...But, well... Thing is Harry, when the minister has the full backing of the Wizardmoth, people just kinda do whatever he says...Don't they do this in the muggle world?...What do you mean 'human rights'?..."_

It had been the most frustrating half hour of Harry's existence. Now he observed his classmates huddled in miserable little groups.

"Enough!" Harry shouted. "I am invoking my authority as defeater of Voldemort to call a school-wide council. Anyone who knows the location of the other common rooms get them to assemble in the room of requirements!"

The assembled students looked at him blankly.

"Go! Scoot!" Harry shooed his housemates out the door with dramatic arm movements. "I have no intention of marrying Snape or anyone else for that matter until I'm good and ready and I'll be a damn sight older than seventeen when I do!"

OooooooooooooooooooooO

Harry stood in front of the council of the united houses. He had never been one for public speaking but such fears were easily put aside under the infinitely greater threat of the wizarding world's complete loss of all rational thought. Not that they had much to work with in the first place, Harry considered as he remembered the follies of the quidditch world cup. The wizarding world for all its flamboyance had never had much sense when it came to practical things.

"I," intoned Harry while looking at the scores of hopeless terrified faces before him. "Am NOT about the relinquish my hard earned freedom and marry Snape. We need to fight this."

They looked sullenly back at him. Harry had to restraint the impulse to blast them all to smithereens. Luckily, Hermione placed a calming hand on his arm as it jerked of its own volition.

"Why should we listen to you, Potter?" whined Zacharias Smith. "No one elected you. You have no right to tell us what to do."

Surprisingly, it was Malfoy that came to his support. "I don't give a fuck if Potter has declared himself emperor of the world, if he has a way out of my marrying that disgusting mudblood Granger, I'm willing to listen."

A few seemed to perk up at this.

"Uhm, yes," mumbled Hermione. "The sentiment is perfectly mutual. Who here does not want to marry the breeding partner assigned to them by the ministry?"

Not a single hand was left unraised.

"Look around!" exclaimed Harry. "All the students of Hogwarts are in unanimous agreement. I say we _should _have the right to control our fate!"

The students nodded their heads.

"I say we _have_ the power to control our lives!" yelled Harry.

The crowd murmured in agreement.

"I say we take back the control of our lives!" screamed Harry. "Too long have Dark Lords and ministries told us what to do and kept us in fear!"

The crowd cheered.

Harry slowly smiled before he settled down to business.

"First we must raise public awareness to the utter stupidity of these laws. We will print pamphlets explaining our views," he ordered. "Luna! Get your father to run articles in the quibbler for us."

He turned to Hermione and whispered: "Do you think we can blackmail Rita Seeker into getting the Daily Prophet to support us? Promise her some interviews on my part. Hell, promise her exclusive coverage on all of my official interviews for the rest of my life."

She nodded grimly.

Harry turned to the Ravenclaws. "Your job will be research. The ministry's solution to a declining birthrate presents an unacceptable option. Find an alternative to achieve the same ends. Research the marriage laws that are being proposed, find the loopholes."

"Slytherins, I want you working in tandem with the Ravenclaws. Find a way to cheat the system, legal or otherwise."

"Are you giving us permission to use black magic?" Malfoy sneered.

"Yes," was Harry's only answer.

Harry bit his lip as he planned for the greatest collective action of protest the wizarding world had ever known. "We'll need to know what is going on. Everyone use all your contact, spare no expense. Find all those unsympathetic to these laws and turn them into outright protesters. A sit-in will be held in front of the ministry. Get your parents to attend. They are already married and therefore the worst that can happen to them is to go to prison. Now that the dementors are not in Azkaban, they won't be permanently harmed."

"We must find a way to personally attack those responsible for this. We will compile a list of of the top officials pushing for these laws at the ministry. Now, how can we make them suffer?" Harry swept his hand back though his hair unconsciously.

"How many of your families own stores?" Harry asked the crowd.

Several students lifted their hands.

Harry nodded. "I want all stores to refuse to sell to them. In addition to which, lets ask, manipulate, buy-off and blackmail the floo technicians so that the damn politicians and all those that support these laws have to face constant disruptions of service."

Harry turned to the Slytherins. "I want you to do what you know best. The Ravenclaws will determine a list of the members of the Wizardmoth that support of the law. They are mostly the patriarchal heads of old families. Use your family's influence and force them to withdraw support."

Millicent Bullstrode smiled wickedly. "We'll blackmail those bastard to hell, Potter."

The meeting continued long into the night.

OooooooooooooooooooooO

The next day, having been informed of these gross human rights violations, the muggle prime minister withdrew all support from the ministry.

The minister faced with the sit-in at the ministry, ordered the Aurors to arrest everyone and take them to Azkaban, only to have Aurors sympathetic to the cause "accidentally" let the prisoners escape.

Those having escaped ministry custody fled to Hogwarts.

The Griffindors and Hufflepuffs had worked tirelessly with the teachers to fortify Hogwarts. Having had the experience of the final battle to prepare them, the castle was almost impossible to breach. Thus, Hogwarts became a citadel, offering protection and safe haven for targets that had already left Hogwarts.

Fudge was furious, he sent order after order for his Aurors to attack. Curiously, the ministry itself seemed to be unable to function. Accidental but crucial typos that would take hours to find and correct found their way into official documents with an alarming frequency. Papers were lost and letters were misinterpreted. Everywhere _accidents_ seemed to slow down procedure.

When Fudge himself walked into Auror headquarters and ordered them to attack, he was politely informed that it just couldn't be done legally until they could find the right forms to sign in triplicate.

The rest of the week passed very unhappily for the minister. People hissed at him in the street. During one misdirected floo incident he ended up in the grizzly cage at the London zoo. Fred and George Weasley's products popped up everywhere causing strategical mayhem.

The wizard Fudge finally cracked when the candy store refused to sell him his favourite sweet: coakroach cluster.

OooooooooooooooooooooO

Centuries later, Binn's history class would be discussing the unproven historical rumour of the one and only time all of wizarding Britain had been united in the pursuit of a common cause.


End file.
